














IRA I. 


STERNER 

















A Souvenir Essay 

on 

SEEMING AND BEING 


By 

IRA I. STERNER 

11 

Computer for the Royal Astronomical Society of England, 
Investigator of the Terms of Precession and Nutation, 
Author of a Memorial Sonnet, Etc. 





THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Cowes Received 

jul. 3 1902 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 

i'YWcMl-iv 
CLASS CUXXo. No. 

i>* $ <? ^ 

CORY 8. 



Copyright, 11)02, 

by I HA,' JL«£>TJ3 RN ER. 





DEDICATION. 


TO THE 

STATE NORMAL SCHOOL ALUMNI, 

who help young minds to grow in genuine thought fulness, 
who teach the architects of fortune how 
to build lastingly, 

and who train aspiring youths in worthy citizenship, 
temporal and eternal, 

AND TO ALL 

who look through appearances to discover realities, 

I DEDICATE 


THIS SOUVENIR ESSAY. 







































































Seeming and Being. 


My friends, I salute you as bearers of the 
title of friendship: for my acquaintance or 
non-acquaintance with you is a matter of for¬ 
mal seeming , while my actual relationship to 
you is a matter of real being. Therefore 
whether ye seem known or unknown, ye are 
nevertheless fellow-citizens in the realm of 
being, and this circumstance ought to make 
us mutual friends. 

O fellow-citizens ! think of yourselves 
for a moment: what are your little selves in 
the midst of this boundless realm of being, 
whose formal mask is called the universe ? 
If ye were only creatures of destiny,—with 
the thread of your lives spun, measured, and 
cut by the Fates,—ye would be small indeed. 


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Then the higher powers might watch you 
through microscopes to see your progressive 
development from infantile cradles to final 
graves, and might listen to you through mi¬ 
crophone tubes to hear your transient express 
sions of joy and of sorrow ere their sound he 
submerged in silence. Then the record of 
your existence would be “a murmur of gnats 
in the gloom ”, as Tennyson has said ; but 
your apparent insignificance is not your real 
value. The smallest life is great, in that it 
involves a special energy which distinguishes 
life from lifelessness : still far greater is the 
human mind, in that it possesses energies sim¬ 
ilar to those of the Divine Mind, though in 
miniature. 

Ap pearances must be analyzed to find 
their meaning. For example, death is an 
appearance: the suspension of vital energy 
does not imply a suspension of psychic energy. 
Even if the psychic energy were reduced to 

























. 

























a condition of rest, it would be immediately 
resumed after the medium thereof had been 
restored to an adequate condition. The fact 
that you think, implies that psychic energy 
exists : energy can never be destroyed, even 
if it seem temporarily suspended : your spir¬ 
itual life ooes on. 

o 

The dead are only apparently dead : 
their works follow them for evermore. All 
the silent voices of the past, all prophetic ad¬ 
monitions and ethical teachings, all the in¬ 
structions and exhortations of poets and 
orators and essayists, are now as really vital 
as they ever were. Human life is not to be 
measured by mere physical and biological 
phenomena, but by effective influence. David, 
Buddha, Aeschylus, Cicero, Christ, Dante, 
Milton, Bossuet, Goethe, Carlyle and 
Emerson, have all gone behind the veil 
which hides the immortals from mortal 
vision. Most truly their lives are grow- 


7 










































































ing in power; for their influence is felt more 
and more in human society, and they teach a 
great deal to all who are willing to learn. 
Your being is not to be measured by your 
seeming, but by your positive impressions 
upon human character. 

David and Aeschylus urge you to con¬ 
sider how small you are in this great cosmos, 
and how great you are in the light of your 
possibilities. Buddha and Cicero beseech 
you to be true, to be sincere, to be friendly, to 
be self-ruled, to be kind, to be just, to have 
faith in your future, and to forward the best 
administration of things human and divine. 
Christ invites you to lay up for yourselves 
treasures in heaven, eternal and incorruptible: 
He is the foremost Teacher of the facts of 
being. Dante echoes the divine appeal to 
your deepest interests, and soars before you 
into the heavens, inviting you to follow him 
to a seraph’s throne. Milton represents to 


8 





you seraphic visions of the counsels of the 
Infinite, “ which are from everlasting to ever- 
lasting.” Bossuet teaches you the vanitv of 
trusting in forms, and urges vou to build your 
hopes upon an eternal foundation, far from 
the deceptions of the apparent world. Goethe 
entreats vou to live resolutelv in the total, 
the good, the fair, as much as you are able, 
and urges vou to strive forward with un- 
swerving will. Carlyle denounces for you all 
things that are unworthy of your permanent 
trust. Emerson asks you the following ques¬ 
tion : “ Will vou not tolerate one or two 

i 

voices in the land, speaking for thoughts and 
principles not perishable?" Answer this 
question for yourselves. Mav vour own 
voices impress eternal elements upon the 
hearts of the children of men. 

Friends, this subject of seeming and 

being is the most important of all subjects. 

Do vou reallv care whether you are alive or 
. * » 


9 





dead ? Most people prefer to be alive. But 
what is your life worth, if it contributes noth¬ 
ing to the actual total of moral force in human 
character? Your life is a gift to be enjoyed 
and developed and made useful. If you seem 
alive, and if your life does not affect the 
world with permanent positive influence, you 
are living in vain and the effective force of 
your existence is zero or negative ; but if your 
life does affect the world with a permanent 
influence for good, then your life is real and 
positive. 

We are living in a form-world: our ex- 
periences of this world are gained through 
our sense-organs. To be brief, let us consider 
what is perceived through the eyes. Every¬ 
thing that we see is form : the eye can receive 
only light-waves, reflected from the object 
seen, and corresponding to the visible char¬ 
acteristics of the object (which we will sum 
up in the word form). We never see beings 


10 






with our eyes: being is perceived only by the 
mind’s intuitions. We can only see the forms 
of objects : so the whole visible world is a 
form-world. 

Now, friends, as you look at your form- 
world, you notice color, arrangement, shape 
and size: within your own minds you have 
the standard by which you judge them. 
Therefore your criticism of your form-world 
will he just, only when your standard is right. 
What is the right standard of criticism ? It 
is that standard which exalts eternal realities 
above transient appearances. To develop 
this standard within your minds, you must 
become intimate with the Being who clothes 
all visible things with their particular forms. 

All systems of stars, planets and satellites, 
all inorganic and organic combinations of ele¬ 
ments, all minerals, plants and animals, in in¬ 
finite gradation, have definite positions in the 
great key-board of form. Man practises on 


11 






various octaves of this key-board to discover 
the hidden harmonies; and if he vibrates 
some music into eternity, he too is a key in 
the organ of the Infinite Musician. 

In the qualities of your form-world, you 
find much that appeals to your sense of 
beauty. Can you look at the multitudes of 
natural forms and divine images, without an 
appreciation of their beauty? Is not this 
appreciation a kind of love, for which the 
Author of beauty is responsible, and by which 
He draws you towards Himself? The reason 
why we love the beautiful wherever it exists, 
is because the beautiful is the divine auto¬ 
graph expressing an eternal purpose which 
we shall read. The beauty of the form- 
world is a symbol of that beauty which has 
always been an element of the Good Will. 

Can you distinguish between apparent 
beauty and real beauty? Can you believe 
that artificial productions are as beautiful as 


12 






the divine works ? Can your most artful 
decorations be as splendid as the floral carpet 
of the plains, the sylvan eminence of the 
hills, the glittering foam of the cataract, the 
rolling expanse of the sea, the chromatic 
splendor of the sun-set rays, and the star- 
spangled canopy of the celestial dome ? Let 
the superficial critic answer these questions 
affirmatively; but the prophet, the poet and 
God are the interpreters of reality . E’en 
though the arbitress of fashion could array 
herself like the flowers of the field, her dress 
does not represent the perfection of her will 
or the sinlessness of her character. Moreover 
an ugly face and a threadbare garment may 

be the mask of a genuine life: think of 
Socrates and Pestalozzi. 

All forms that Time creates, 

Time soon annihilates. 

So your present forms can not outlast a 
century: soon each human form passes from 


13 




visibility to invisibility, when the form-world 
is out-grown. 

Is it worth while to place your deepest 
trust in things that are necessarily transient ? 
Many objects of human desire, whether 
wealth or glory or fame or pleasure or 
fashion, are transient: they belong: to this 
finite earth, and can not accompany immortal 
souls on the upward way. The greatest 
French orator, in the midst of royal splen¬ 
dors, spoke the truth as follows: “Fame is 
only an appearance ; the graces and the pleas¬ 
ures are only dangerous amusement; every¬ 
thing is vain in us except the sincere confes¬ 
sion of our vanities before God. The work 
of the Christian is, to destroy the passions, 
which make of our hearts a temple of idols. 
Holy meditations and good works are the 
true riches which you will send before you 
into future ages.” 

The objects of human love are mostly 


14 







transient. We are urged to set our affections 
on eternal things. Why then do we love 
transient things at all? Because they are 
symbols of eternal things, and are adapted to 
our present edification. 

Which is preferable, to love what is tran¬ 
sient, or to love what is permanent? All 
material forms are transient; but righteous¬ 
ness and souls and God are permanent. 
Therefore, if we are wise, we do not love too 
well the forms that must vanish, but we love 
eternal qualities and beings. Meanwhile, O 
friends, our human forms may come and go, 
like the tides of eternity around this isle of 
life; but our characters sail on over the 
infinite expanse, and happy are we if our 
souls be united with the bonds of friendship 
while we proceed on the eternal way. When 
the storms of the inevitable have passed over 
the isle of life, may we sail through the 
regions of Calm. 


15 





As long as a human heart has more love 
for forms than for the Author of forms, that 
heart is guilty of idolatry. “Little children, 
love one another; but keep yourselves from 
idols.” God is above all His works, and He 
requires our obedience and service first of all. 
We must eliminate all idolatry from our souls, 
by loving eternal things more than transient 
forms. 

Let us therefore strive to incorporate 
within ourselves all eternal positive attributes, 
such as truth, goodness and beauty, and all 
kinds of virtue, such as faith, hope, charity, 
purity, humility, kindness, gentleness and 
peace. 

“ Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids : 

Her monuments shall last when Egypt’s fall.” 

— Dr. Young. 

Moreover virtue must be active, diligent, 
effective, and victorious. The great German 
philosopher Hegel said that virtue is the 


16 





highest completed struggle. In striving for 
virtue, this is the blessing of good deeds, that 
they must thenceforth produce good. The 
necessary result of the absorption of virtue 
into human personality, is happiness: there¬ 
fore to be happy, we must acquire and build 
divine energies in our very constitutions, and 
develop an adequate medium for the Spirit of 
Life within us. 

Many an emperor on a throne has been 
inferior to many a slave under an oppressive 
yoke. How then shall the being of a man be 
measured? The just measurement of our 
being is based on a standard whose attainment 
is within the power of every man. What is 
that standard ? “ Be ye perfect, even as your 

Father in heaven is perfect.” By this stand¬ 
ard are judged the rich and the poor, the 
learned and the ignorant, the famous and the 
obscure. The just Judge does not ask us how 
many sciences we have mastered, how many 


17 

















































arts we have learned, how many philosophical 
problems we have solved, how many languages 
we can speak, how many offices we have held, 
or how many corporations we control. He 
asks each one of ns plainly: “ How much 
have you actually learned in the books of 
eternal truth ? How much learning have you 
applied to the welfare of your fellow-men ? 
How much evil have you overcome in your¬ 
self and in society? How sinless and how 
useful is your life?” Learning, wealth, and 
position are means , not ends. There is one 
important end, viz., human righteousness. If 
we strive to accomplish that end, we shall 
learn to know and to do the will of the All- 
Righteous. 

Friends ! ye seem true : ye seem good : ye 
seem beautiful; but are ye true and good and 
beautiful? To be true, ye must have the 
truth permeating your intellects. To be good, 
ye must have God’s energies vibrating in yom 


18 



lives. To be beautiful, ye must have beautiful 
character registered in your souls. 

However imperfect and ignorant a human 
life may be, there is something great in that 
life. The essence of that greatness is a being 
which had its roots primarily in the Supreme 
Mind : that being needs careful nurture , that 
it may thrive happily and transcend the form- 
world . 

Friends! learn virtue: develop virtue: 
act virtue: teach virtue. All those whom ye 
train to live virtuously, will bid you rejoice. 
Ye yourselves are mere children in the cradle 
of transiency : when ye shall have outgrown 
your transiencies, then may the Eternal fill 
the measure of your joy. 


19 






Ye incarnations of the thoughts benign, 

Are dearer far than mortal tongues can tell: 

Xo human soul within a finite shell, 

Can speak th’ infinity of Love divine. 

The highest human love is but a sign 
Of higher Love where all immortals dwell : 

So let the harmony of life now swell 
In worthy branches of th’ eternal Vine. 

Xow in our charity may life arise 
From gentleness to ever kinder deeds, 

And may the sac-redness of friendly ties 
Urge us to give our best to human needs ; 

In triumphs of Good Will let us be wise, 

That we may follow where the Conqueror leads. 


JUL 5 - i»02 


2IJ 


JUL. 3 I90i 




1 COPY DEL TO CAT, DIV. 
JUL. 5 1902 


JUL. 10 1902 










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